Remind me: What’s happening in Venezuela?
The oil-rich nation has been plunged into poverty and chaos. People are living from meal to meal, taking turns to dig through trash to try to find scraps of food and resorting to zoo animals, rats and dogs for meat. Children are starving to death at unprecedented rates.
Who thought this was a good idea?
On Monday, President Donald Trump said in an address to the U.N. that Venezuela’s problem “is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.”
Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was praised as a revolutionary for instating sweeping socialist reforms. Nicolas Maduro took over after Chavez’s death in 2013, vowing to continue his policies of state control.
Economists say reckless government spending and state control are a big part of the problem, and the Venezuelan government is deeply in debt and dealing with the falling price of oil.
Progressive Hollywood celebrities and self-titled socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders have pointed to Venezuela as an example of socialism working. In 2011, Sanders said that “the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina.”
Glenn’s take:
“Venezuela was supposed to be the crown jewel. It’s the progressive paradise,” Glenn reminded listeners on Wednesday’s “The Glenn Beck Radio Program.”
Sanders once praised countries with food lines, saying that rationing was a sign of equality and success.
“Ask a Venezuelan what it’s like to deal with food rationing … to get turned away and then have to go dig through the trash in a last-ditch effort to feed your family,” Glenn said.